So apparently posts are supposed to have content or something, this is the trailer for the Incursion trailer... <3 EVE
Today is the day of the Cataclysm. WoW servers are down till 5pst damnit, 7pm my time. I also think it's a bunch of shit that when the actual expansion comes out the servers will be playable at 12am pst, that's 2am here and makes it pretty unrealistic for me to start my march to 85 that night.
Got this and gave it a quick run last night. Got to say I’m very happy with it so far, graphics are good, having an agent and facing the press breaks up the racing nicely and actual racing is awesome. Turning off the drivers assists makes the car an absolute handful which is awesome. Only thing so far I think could be better is the damage (can pretty much sideswipe other cars and nothing happens, need to hit front on quiet hard to have anything happen) and engine/mechanical wear would add another dimension to the game. Overall it seems like a good game. Would be better with a steering wheel etc. but I don't play enough to go out and buy a set up.
Okay, full review of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Obviously, the gameplay is very, very similar to that of Assassin's Creed 2. They made a few tweeks, though, mostly for the better. First, they included the ability to 'execute' enemies. This means that you can create a chain of kills, and changes the tide of battles. You can also find, train, and recruit assassins. Once trained, you can call on them to help you in battle, by either creating distractions or mowing down enemies. It was really useful in missions where you had to go undiscovered. You could just call in the other assassins while you were blended into a crowd. The rest of the gameplay is virtually identical to that of AC2. This time, however, (with the exception of a short stint in Monteriggioni) you're located entirely in the city of Rome. Luckily, the city is huge, so you don't necessarily miss running around various cities. There are plenty of side quests to keep you busy, along with a lot of goals to go for. One of the best additions are the side missions involving Leonardo DaVinci's inventions. Long story short, these turn into missions akin to the 'flying machine' mission in AC2, except much more awesome. The game is both easier and more challenging than AC2. Let me explain: The missions themselves aren't too difficult to just complete. However, the game encourages to go for 100% synchronization. To do this, you have to meet certain goals (i.e. complete a memory in so many minutes, or complete an assassination in a certain fashion). Just doing it is easy, but to do it right can be really tough. The economic system is back, too. This time, though, it has also been tweeked. Money is no longer flowing in like crazy, to the point where you have nothing to do with it. This time, you have to buy shops (doctors, blacksmiths, banks, painting shops, tailors) to gain access to their wares. They bring in money, which you use to renovate more shops (which becomes increasingly more expensive) and buy landmarks around the city (i.e. the Colosseum and the Pantheon), which increases income. Your overall goal is to finally rebuild Rome. Finally, there is the multiplayer. Personally, I love this mode. It is the first multiplayer that I've really enjoyed. There are several modes. In Wanted there are 6 to 8 people. Each picks a different personality. Each is assigned a target, and that is the only person they can kill. While you're stalking someone else, someone is stalking you. You quickly get good at notching the patterns of how others walk. You're in a pretty decent sized map with a bunch of clones of your personality, so someone can blend in with a group of 6 clones of himself, and if that's your target, you have to try to pick him out. There are also some good tactics and upgrades to get, all of which can counter each other. One will disguise yourself, and another will turn all the NPCs around you into clones of yourself. Another skill lets you see through disguises, so you can tell which is the player and which is the clone. There is also Advanced Wanted which is pretty much the same, except that your compass isn't as accurate (you have to look harder for other players), and it is much easier to trigger and escape from a chase. The thing you learn quickly is that the amount of kills is almost meaningless. You can get 10 kills and finish in dead last. Quality counts, so you learn to slowly stalk them and try to get bonuses for being incognito, or being hidden (i.e. jump out of a group or a hay bale) when you make the kill. You can also stun your pursuers (which is much tougher than it sounds). You stay pretty constantly on your toes, and it can be supremely frustrating to be stalking your target, a few steps away from the kill, just to have someone stab you in the eye with a fucking needle and kill you. At the same time, getting those high-score kills feels awesome. The most frustrating part is when you get guys who spend the whole game on the rooftops running. You spend half your game chasing them, or get massacred because the minute you take off running, the guy stalking you finds you and kills you really quick. When that happens I usually just say fuck it and kill an NPC, which gives you a different target. The other modes are alliance, where you team up with a group of 3 or 4 against another group for 2 rounds. In one round, your team hunts the other team. In the other round, your team is the hunted. You get bonuses for working together. There is another mode where you are in teams of 2, hunting for other teams of 2 (I haven't personally done this mode). I'd recommend the game on the strength of the multiplayer alone. If you liked AC and AC2, I'd say Brotherhood is an upgrade, in terms of playability. The story isn't as good, but the multiplayer and the improvements on gameplay still make it an absolutely worthwhile purchase.
Logged in last night around 8ish and by then the servers were back up and good to go. Since I just came back after a long break I had to spend over an hour getting my UI addons back in working order and figuring out all the talent/spellbook changes and whatnot. Once I got that figured out though I went to check out some changes and holy crap did they really change things up. I only checked out the Barrens, Orgrimmar and Azshara. Orgrimmar is completely different and looks badass...I actually got lost a couple times which hasn't happened in years. The Barrens were the same at first...until I came upon the huge gash in the ground with a river of lava at the bottom. I couldn't find a way to get across it to check out the southern Barrens, seems that we can't actually get the skill to use flying mounts in the old world till the 7th. After that I went and checked out Azshara on the suggestion of a friend, and it started out the same too, but once you get closer to the middle it is completely different. The goblins have constructed a huge base in the middle of the zone that is like a navel base for the horde. They also built a "rocket highway" that goes around the outside of the zone, that is definitely something to check out. It will be easier to check out all the changes once we can use flying mounts in those areas, but for now I will be riding around on my trusty Skeletal Warhorse and checking out all the changes.
Believe it or not, the best part of this expansion is the fact that they are splitting into two parts. The first part, releasing on Nov. 30, should contain many of the following: Bolded the awesome. True multi-monitor support, fixing an entire weapons system, fixing long-standing issues with Tech 2 ammo? Yes please. The second part of the expansion, Incursion proper, will include the Sansha incursions, Incarna + new character creation, etc. Awesome. Not only that, but they've shelved the ridiculous micro-transaction idea they were proposing (PLEX for Remaps) after the player base basically revolted. CCP listening to the player base and waiting to roll out expansions until they're done, instead of releasing another half-assed new feature that's broken on arrival? And rethinking their microtransactions to boot? It's a new day.
In unrelated news, how many of you folks have heard of AI War: Fleet Command? The basic upshot is that this is the game with the most advanced AI out there. Instead of making the AI simulate a human player, the game has it behave as alien as possible. Instead of simulating one top-down intelligence (i.e. a human player commanding his forces), the game simulates thousands of individual unit, squad, and platoon commanders, all working together to defeat your forces. This is a new way of doing video game AI. If you've ever read Ender's Game, you're halfway to understanding it. So as time goes on, the AI will spawn attackers. This is the "tower defense" bit. You have to build defenses. However, the number of attackers depends on how aggressively you've expanded - how much you've pissed off the AI. The more aggressive you get, the more attackers it will send. The "grand strategy" part - you're managing thousands of units at once. The battles can get epic. And the "4x" part: this game discourages micromanaging. It's more like Civilization than Starcraft. Your typical game, called a campaign, takes between 7 and 16 hours to play. So why am I writing about this now? Well, a couple of things happened. First AI War released a friggin' huge expansion, called The Zenith Remnant, for $10. Then they released another one, called Children of Neinzul, for $4, and all profit goes to the charity Child's Play for kids with cancer. Then they released the update to end all updates. That's right, these guys went back and rewrote the entire engine of an already-released game, so now it's Mac compatible and runs acceptably on Linux via emulation. That's the best kind of crazy. And they're releasing another expansion next month. TL;DR: These guys are doing something completely new and innovative in AI, they've released an awesome game and a couple of quick expansions, and they're giving to charity to boot. Get this game and support what they're doing (and have fun too!). Link to buy Trailer (starts a little slow) RPS Let's Play And a quick plug for the browser game Radical Fishing, which looks... fucking hilarious.
I never meant it like that, i meant it more like i dont have time for another time waster, it was a fun game, i dont even have time for the games i play now, let alone another one. I sent the wife down with my credit card so she can pick up GT5, it is sitting at home waiting for me to play it on my lunch break. I got about 2.5 hours until i can start playing cant wait.
This is the only point I would disagree with. I had roughly 1.5 mil in the bank around early sequence 6.
Ok, WTF is going on with GT5. My coworker went and bought it on his lunch 12-1, and when he put the disk in it just played. My lunch 1-2, when i put the disk in it asked for an update already 133MB, then it asked me if i wanted to install the game to the hd for faster loading times. It never asked him any of those. From what my coworker has said, it is pretty slow to load if you dont. It took me 20 minutes to download to update, and when i left 20 minutes later it was only a quarter done. So i never got to even see the dam intro. Fuck i cant wait until after work now.
Know what really makes EVE an awesome game? Scamming a corporation out of 5 billion ISK, this isn't nearly as impressive as some of the larger scams people have pulled of but goddamn it feels good to be a gangster.
I played Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, and thought it was slightly better than AC2. However, it still kind of sucked. Once the novelty wears off, you're left with horrible fighting mechanics and controls, some of the most laughable animation frames I've ever seen, and boring, one-dimensional missions. There was a minor scandal when Ubisoft was found to have paid video game magazines to give positive reviews of the original Assassin's Creed. However, no one seemed to care after a week, and I have no doubt they pulled the same stunt for the two sequels. I absolutely love the premise; sneaking around as a badass killer in historical settings. It's perfect. But the execution is among the worst imaginable. Focus- Tried Sonic: Colors, and oddly enough, it's really good. It's an inspired mix of 2D, 3D, and various game modes and perspectives. All the while, it's fast-paced, there are tons of secrets and original levels to find and explore, and the platforming is solid throughout. It definitely draws a lot of inspiration from Super Mario Galaxy with exploring various crazy planets, but in some ways, is even better. Easily the best Sonic game of the last 15 years.
Pretty much. I played through both of the first two games and they are overwhelmingly mediocre. I don't really understand what people think is so great about the series. The fighting mechanics are poorly designed and very boring. All of the quests are lame and repetitive. The second one really didn't improve upon the first that much, in my opinion. I just can't find one good thing to say about these games. I only played through the second one when I was bored and figured they would reveal more of the story. Instead, I got AC1 with an alien twist ending and nothing happened outside of the Animus. I'm sure that is the same for the new game, but I might eventually rent it when I have nothing else to play. Or maybe I'll just read the plot on Wikipedia.
Good so i am not the only one that didn't really like these games. I never even got through the first one, i played it when it first came out. I cant really remember it much, i just remember it was alot of running around, and quests/fighting was boring to me.
Fuck you EVE people, now I want to get back in the game. Speaking of the bigger Scams, I was in GH-SC for a little. Great times. I can't really join a real corporation now with it on my employment history, but you can't win them all, can you? I'll have to wait until I get a new job and all of that to get into the game. I honestly feel like I'm going to blow 14.99 just so I can redo my beautiful Javane's face and body. Damn CCP, their pretty trailers and good ideas. I don't know of any game developer that tries harder than they do.
Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii is ridiculously difficult. I am no slouch when it comes to video games and even I have a hard time just making it through a level, much less bending over backwards to complete all the objectives. I am jaded towards this most recent iteration but I'm not sure if it's because I genuinely don't like it or if I'm miffed that it is so hard. I mean, it is creative enough and there are a couple of neat elements but it is very frustrating. It has hints of the old games - mine cart races being the main one but there is none of the light-heartedness of the previous titles. While Rambi makes an appearance, there is no Winky! No Squawks! No Squitter! I mean, according to the booklet, there might eventually be but you have to brave hell and high (raging) water to get there. I rented the game on a 5 day stint and I don't mind giving it back tomorrow. I am at least a third of the way through it and am not only struggling to just complete any level but am seriously contemplating why I need to strive for all the extras.
If you have a Ps3 and an HDTV, you need to get your hands on Gran Turismo 5. Why? If only for one reason: There's a special challenge in the game that has you racing different cars all around landmarks in Italy. Eventually you get to drive a Murcielago in Tuscany... In the dark. It's the most exhilarating thing I've ever seen/done in a game. It just looks so awesome. Just look at it!
I finally logged into WoW last night for the first time since 4.0.3. Man that had me screwed up, Stormwind finally has a bigger auction house! It's also pretty cool how a bunch of it is open as well now (behind Cathedral Square). I also accidently dropped a couple k gold on buying Master flying (310 flight). What are the main changes people noticed? I haven't had a chance to go through and setup my new talents yet but it looks like it should be pretty good. I'm excited to explore the changes in both EK and Kalimdor.